


The little bird that kept so many warm

by Cassidae



Series: Empath Jon [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: AU: Jon is an empath, Episode Related, Gen, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Takes Care of Martin Blackwood, MAG 22: Colony, Season/Series 01, Tea as a love language, Unrequited Crush, extensive use of metaphors and similies, i hate the corruption can you tell, jon is not as much of an asshole as he could've been
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassidae/pseuds/Cassidae
Summary: Jon pries his fingers from their death grip on the arms of his chair and runs them through his hair, exhaling shakily.“Good lord,Martin.”Unexpectedly, there is a drumming on his sternum, defense rising from the exhaustion and lingering green-yellow. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you about something like this, Jon. I—”“No,”Jon cuts him off, too harshly, he can tell by the pinched look on Martin’s face and the sting in his chest. “No,” Jon repeats stiffly, “Martin, I know you’re not lying."
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Martin Blackwood
Series: Empath Jon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2204427
Comments: 5
Kudos: 117





	The little bird that kept so many warm

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Emily Dickinson's _Hope is the thing with feathers_ , because apparently I can't get enough of animal metaphors.

Jon had a  _ plan. _

It hadn’t been much of one, admittedly. That’s what happens when you’re promoted from researcher to Head Archivist without so much as a handover. But what little control he had over the situation slipped away when someone he  _ didn’t know _ came barging into his office, piling onto Jon’s already frayed nerves, looking for a  _ damn dog. _ To add insult to injury, this graceless fool is working under him.

There are exactly two people working at the institute that Jon can stand to be in his emotional perimeter for any length of time. Those are exactly the two he requested as his assistants. He did not ask for, nor did he  _ need _ an unfamiliar third gunking up the works. He has not the time nor inclination to learn the ins and outs of this Martin Blackwood.

But Elias is firm and can’t be swayed. Martin, regrettably, stays. 

Tim’s emotions have long since become familiar to Jon, the protective green and sometimes heavy blue he hides behind broad grins— Tim hasn’t offered about that, so Jon hasn’t asked. Generally speaking, the camaraderie he feels towards Jon is by now comfortable and even welcome feeling, something like an arm settled across his shoulders, reassuring instead of heavy.

Sasha is a bit more… reserved toward him, a calm blue that is polite but almost as jovial as Tim at times. Not to mention that he’s familiar with her feelings after that whole…  _ thing _ with Tim, which thankfully remains close and friendly. She’s extremely skilled and he’s grateful she agreed to the position

Between the three of them, there is balance enough for a productive working relationship. 

… Then there’s Martin. 

Martin is a humming yellow, constantly buzzing by his ear like an annoying insect. The man is a mess of nerves what seems to be at all times and it’s making Jon even more jittery than he already was. Not even shutting himself in his office dampens the emotional noise; his incessant, nebulous  _ worry _ crawling over Jon’s skin and clouding his thoughts, making him more snappish than usual whenever they speak. Behind Martin’s stuttering and fumbling, his own annoyance is thrown right back at Jon, and maybe that… escalates things, a few times. It’s a welcome relief to send Martin out on statement research, even if the results are often less than helpful. 

Only by burying himself in his work to the point that all other input, even emotions, are muted and far away, is he relieved from the constant distraction that is Martin Blackwood.

When Martin is out sick, it should be peaceful. And it is, for a time, and Jon finds himself calmer at work than he ever was before. But as one week turns into two, Martin’s absence becomes palpable, to the point that it’s a nearly equal distraction. By the third, Tim and Sasha are a bit worried. And when Jon’s by himself, working late in the archives,  _ truly _ alone in a way he can’t even reach in his apartment complex… he can perhaps admit that he is a bit worried, as well.

Martin still hasn’t responded to his voicemails.

It’s probably fine.

Jon is lost to the world in a statement of pale, ending blue; feeling empty and lightheaded, the bottom long dropped from his stomach, when Martin bursts into his office with a wave of fear and panic and  _ relief _ that almost knocks Jon out of his chair.

_ “My god! _ Martin?!”

Martin is still yellow, but now an almost unrecognizable shade; it is sickly and slimy and tinted a putrid green that has his stomach roiling. Jon can’t stop the face he pulls of fear and disgust even before Martin slims the jar of silvery  _ things _ on his desk.

“What… what the hell is-?  _ What are these things?!” _

His finger scrabbles for the stop button on the tape recorder as he jumps to his feet, looking between the jar and Martin’s red, sweating face.

“It’s- it’s-  _ worms-” _ Martin gasps, and while that answers one question it raises a hundred others.

_ “Breathe, _ Martin— and sit down, for god’s sake!” Jon says as calmly as he can, which isn’t very. Although harsher than Jon intended, it does seem to break through the frenzy and Martin obediently collapses in a chair.

Nausea still rolls in Jon’s stomach, to the point that he feels like he needs to sit down himself. But he settles for leaning against the side of the desk and going over Martin with a critical eye— the man is a mess, and not just from seemingly sprinting all the way to the institute.

But they’re both useless until Martin calms down. Jon closes his eyes and pictures walls around him, pushing back the intruding yellow-green.  _ “Breathe,” _ he repeats, quieter, as much to himself as to Martin. He opens his eyes and keeps them fixed on a point on the wall just above his assistants’s shoulder and begins counting breaths out loud, for both their benefits.

He doesn’t stop until Martin’s face returns to a healthy color and Jon feels steady enough to let go of the desk. He casts another glance at the jar — and yes, those are silvery worms alright, and he swears he sees one  _ twitch _ — then back to Martin. Who doesn’t look like he’s slept in weeks, much less showered. His assistant is hurriedly wiping tears from his face, though Jon doesn’t sense any sadness, only relief. And that— that, Jon can deal with.

Jon takes one last deep breath. “Martin,” he says again, “What.  _ Happened.” _

* * *

“And I ran… all the way here.”

With that, Martin Blackwood deflates. The manic energy has left him, leaving a pale, shaky shell of a man. He is, as Martin said himself, not the smallest, but now he looks as if a breeze could knock him over.

Jon takes careful, controlled breaths, though they’re still too shallow to help calm his heart rate. ‘Nauseous’ doesn’t even begin to describe the wriggling and roiling of his stomach, the bile at the back of his throat, the must in his nose and the sweetness of rot and canned peaches on his tongue. The icy dredges of fear that shot through him as Martin spoke are finally fading, but he still feels… sticky, like the air is oversaturated and humid, and a persistent itch that goes farther down than skin-deep.

He remembers this sickly greenish yellow, like pus seeping from a wound, from the statement of Timothy Hodge. This is so, so much more potent coming from a person rather than paper.  _ (It’s never supposed to come from paper in the first place, and yet—) _

Jon hears himself speak as if from far away. “Statement ends.”

He pries his fingers from their death grip on the arms of his chair and runs them through his hair, exhaling shakily.  _ “Good lord, _ Martin.”

Unexpectedly, there is a drumming on his sternum, defense rising from the exhaustion and lingering green-yellow. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you about something like this, Jon. I—”

_ “No,” _ Jon cuts him off, too harshly, he can tell by the pinched look on Martin’s face and the sting in his chest. “No,” Jon repeats stiffly, “Martin, I know you’re not lying. You’ve been through… an ordeal, far more serious and real than the majority of things we archive.”

“O-oh.” Martin is looking at him strangely now. Confusion and disbelief swirl together, along with something else they’re muddying. “You… you really believe me?” The tilt of his head and the high lilt of his voice finally clue Jon in; it’s  _ hope, _ a fragile, bony thing, like a downy bird just pushed from the nest.

“Yes.” Jon extends his arm halfway across the desk without thinking. His hand only ends up lying there, cupped around empty air as if to catch that hope. Martin stares at it with wide eyes and something heavy lodged in his throat that makes Jon want to cough and hack so he doesn’t choke. He doesn’t move at all for a long moment. Then Jon closes the hand into a tight fist, exhaling slowly, hoping Martin didn’t notice the slight tremble of it.

“Yes, I absolutely believe you, Martin.”

Another breath. The fear is finally fading, exhaustion settling like a heavy weight over his shoulders. But it isn’t his, and Jon can’t rest now regardless; there’s too much to do. “There’s a room in the archives I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now. I’ll talk to Elias about whether we can get extra security, but the archives have enough locks for now. It’s also supposed to be humidity controlled and, though it hasn’t been working for some time, it does mean it’s well-sealed.”

Jon meets Martin’s eyes as steadily as he can and feels hope flutter its wings, brushing delicately against the inside of his ribs. “Nothing will be sneaking through any window cracks,” he assures. With those words, the last of the fear and pus is wiped away, and Jon can finally breathe deeply.

Martin’s staring at Jon like he’s never seen him before. There’s something new, suddenly; an odd sort of warmth that spreads from his chest and down his arms to the tips of his fingers. It’s not all that unpleasant, just… strange, especially after so many negative emotions.

“Okay,” Martin says slowly, then smiles small. It’s one of the few he’s given Jon that comes with true happiness behind it, and not just a nervous reflex. “Thanks. To be honest I didn’t, didn’t expect you…”

Whatever he was going to say is interrupted by Jon’s phone buzzing. They both jump, but the coldness Jon feels when he sees the sender is, for once, all his own. “You say you lost your phone two weeks ago?” he asks.

Martin frowns. “Thereabouts. When I went back to the basement.”

“Well, in that time I have received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems.” Realization dawns on Martin, along with another bout of nausea. “The last one said that you thought it ‘might be a parasite’, though my calls trying to follow up were never answered. And… I just received another text message. From you.”

The fear returns again, cold and crawling, but Jon makes himself read it out loud.  _ “Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.” _

“What does that mean?” Martin asks in a low voice, the awful pus color creeping in again, and—  _ no, _ it had just gone away. Martin has already spent two hellish weeks steeped in that awfulness, and Jon is already utterly sick of it after less than an hour.  _ No more. _

_ “It means,” _ Jon says, standing on slightly shaky legs, “I ask Elias to hire some extra security. I should probably warn Sasha and Tim as well. I’ll also have a look through the archives, as I believe we should have a statement from Ms. Prentiss herself in here somewhere.”

That soothes Martin, at least somewhat. Now, Jon fully intends to stride out of the office and set to work on those tasks — does Elias need the jar of worms as proof? No, best not — but he’s stopped in his tracks by yet another lance of fear. Not the sickly yellow crawling under his skin, but a kind of grey that makes his hands feel cold and numb.

He looks at Martin, but he isn’t looking back. Martin stares at his lap where his hands clutch the edge of his soiled jumper, uneasy about being left alone—

Oh. God, Jon is stupid.

Jon starts to reach out for Martin’s shoulder, but pulls back at the last moment, unsure if the touch would be welcomed after so long fearing something invading your skin. So he clears his throat instead and Martin looks up at him with wide, unsure eyes.

“Perhaps… perhaps a cup of tea first?” It comes out as a question, though he didn’t mean it to. “And some real food,” he says as an afterthought. Just like that, a yawning hole of hunger appears as if a curtain were whisked aside and Martin’s stomach grumbles out loud, to his flushed embarrassment.

“Y-yes.  _ Please. _ I’ll eat anything, as long as it’s not out of a can.” Martin’s laugh is strained, but Jon can acknowledge the effort. He stands, but doesn’t move for the door, just… looks at Jon. That warmth is back, heating him from the inside-out like a slow furnace, and Jon could almost swear he feels a ghostly hand brush his.

Jon wipes the hand on his trousers, replacing the phantom touch with stiff fabric, one sense for another. He’s- he’s not sure what this is, and while it’s certainly more pleasant than the fear, it’s still not something that belongs to him. Just like the two weeks of terror Martin unknowingly unloaded onto Jon, that he desperately wants to crawl into a far corner of the archives to be on his own and process, where he can be sure his skin is clean and all his own.

But not yet. Right now Martin needs him, for just a bit longer. Jon promised tea.

“I believe there’s leftover Pad Thai in the fridge that Tim won’t mind you eating,” Jon says. His eyes dart away from Martin’s — though he knows that will do nothing to break the connection to his emotions, to dispel the warmth — and land on the tape recorder, still quietly whirring away. He reaches for the stop button.

“Recording ends.”

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for a second part about how Martin living in the archives affects Jon. But for now, I hope you've enjoyed it!


End file.
